Motion of the lay in looms



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN GOULDING, OF WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS.

MOTION OIE' THE LAY IN LOOMS.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOHN GOULDING, of I/Vorcester, in the county of Torcester and State of Massachusetts, have made certain new and useful Improvements in Looms; and I do hereby declare that the same is described and represented in the following specification and accompanying drawings.

In most of the looms which have been constructed heretofo-re, the lay has been vibrated by the direct action of a crank or cam, requiring a large amount of power in proportion to the force of the stroke.

The design and object o-f my first improvement is to save a part of the power heretofore required, and give a more eflicient and powerful stroke, and repeat the stroke as many times as may be requisite upon the same thread of weft. To do this, I vibrate the lay of my loom by toggle joints, the

ends of which are connected to the lay and to some part of the loom so as t-o operate the lay by vibrating the toggle joints with a sweep from a crank or some analogous device from a cam or otherwise, by means of which I am enabled to mak-e the lay strike such a number of times upon each thread of weft as may be desirable, and only draw the lay a short distance from the weft for each stroke after t-he first upon t-he same thread of weft, thereby saving the warp from a. large portion of the wear to which it is subjected by drawing the lay as far from the weft for each succeeding stroke as for the first, as has been practised in thel looms heretofore constructed which have made more than one stroke upon the same thread of weft.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention I will proceed to describe its construction and operation, referring to the drawings abovementioned, in which the same references indicate like parts in each of the figures.

Figure 1 is a plan and FiO'. 2 a sectional elevation through the line e, e of Fig. 1.

A, A are front posts connected by the girth A and breast beam A2; B, B are back posts connected together by the girth B and to the front posts A, A by the girths B2, B3. The main shaft C, to which the power is applied to drive the loom and which has the cranks C2, O2 in it, turns in boxes fitted to the girths B3. A gear may be applied to this shaft to operate a cam shaft to traverse the heddles and throw the shuttles. The lay D may be constructed in the usual manner or otherwise and hung to stands fastened to the lower ends of the posts A; which lay is vih-rated by the arms D, D connected to it as represented. The opposite ends of the arms are made double with a space between the ends for the ends of the sweeps D2, D2 connected to them and to the cranks C2, C2. The ends of the arms D2, D3 are inserted into the space in the ends of the arms D as represented in the drawing and connected to them and to the cheeks E, E upon the rock shaft E forming toggle joints to vibrate the lay as they are operated by the crank and sweeps. The shaft E turns in bearings fastened to the girths B2 and has the arm E2 fastened to it which vibrates the pawl E3 to turn the ratchet wheel F fastened to the shaft F', which turns in stands fastened to the posts B and may be connected to the yarn beam so as to deliver the warp as it is required. The spring F2 is fastened to the girth B and co-nnected to the arm E2 by the link G so as to draw the arm back after it has been forced forward by the action of t-he arms D. There are two arms G, G fastened to the posts B which are perforated for the pivots of the yarn beams G2, G3 which turn in the same. The circle H (in dotted line) represents the circuit of the crank. If the crank is u or at 1,on the circle the lay is drawn from the cloth and the arms D and D3 stand at an angle; as the crank is turned to 2, the arms are straightened and the lay is driven to the cloth; as the crank goes to 3 it draws the arms D and D3 down so as to form an angle and draws the lay a short distance from the cloth and as the crank proceeds to t it straightens the arms D and D3 and forces the lay up against the cloth again; and as the crank passes on from4 to 1 the arms make an angle and draw the lay from the cloth to the same position it was in at first; thus throwing the lay and striking the weft with the reed twice for each revolution of the crank without wearing the warp (by traversing the reed on it) so much as it would be worn if the lag was traversed back the usual distance, as is practiced in the double stroke looms heretofore used.

If it is desirable to have the lay strike once only instead of twice for each thread of weft the sweeps D2 and crankshaft C may be removed and longer sweeps and a shaft with sho-rter cranks substituted so that when Wspring the sheds a short distance'below a straight line so that if both sheds of warp come from the same beam the top one will not be drawn so tight as the under one and hence the under one is subject to nearly all the strain from theV stroke of the lay and consequently the warp is more often broken than it would be if the strain was more equally divided between them; thus causing frequent stopping and delay to mend i the threads.

this way the strain is divided so equally between the two sheds, by the yielding of the several posts of the loom, that although the warps are sprung below a straight line they break far less than when they are both taken from the same beam.

When fabrics are to be woven with two or more sheds of warp I contemplate using a separate beam for one or two or more of the sheds, or otherwise What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

Giving the lay of a loom one or more long beats for the shuttle to pass or to insert a wire into thel web; and as many short beats as may be necessary or desirable to strike up each thread of weft and wire with a toggle joint operated by a sweep or some other device connected to or operated by a crank cam or otherwise.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto signed my name before two subscribing witnesses. l

JOHN GOULDING. Witnesses:

WM. DENNIS, JONATHAN DENNrs, Jr. 

